The Wittgenstein's Vienna

WITTGENSTEINS VIENNA by Allen Janek & Stephen Toulmen. This is an overview of the social, intellectual, and cultural climate of Hapsburg Vienna during the life of the philosopher, Wittgenstein. The first part is an excellent introduction to the intellectual and cultural environment of pre-WWI Vienna as well as the mise en scène for Wittgenstein's development as a philosopher. The latter part is an introduction to his philosophy which is necessarily very technical and likely fully to engage only one with substantial background in philosophy and curiosity about Wittgenstein's role in its evolution in the 20th century. The authors succeed in their objective of revealing him to be a product of a philosophical and cultural dialogue (including literature, journalism, art, architecture and music) in Vienna that defined the basic problems he sought to solve before his move to Cambridge and his engagement with the Anglo-Saxon analytical philosophers with whom he is most commonly associated.